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Re: (ASCEND) Are Patches Rolled Into Subsequent Patch Releases?

At 10:50 AM 11/24/97 HST, Gerald Honma wrote:
>It's not clear to me. Starting with a general release, say 5.0A for 
>Pipeline. There are currently seven (7) patch releases identified at 
>http://www.ascend.com/769.html. Specifically, 5.0Ap1, 5.0Ap3, 5.0Ap4, 
>5.0Ap5, 5.0Ap7, 5.0Ap8, and 5.0Ap10.

Whoa, that link is out of date...should be up to 5.0Ap33 by now....I've
ping'd the webmaster.

>Does 5.0Ap10 INCLUDE all the fixes mentioned in the previous 5.0Ap# 
>patches? The documentation for each patch does not seem to mention/repeat 
>the "fixes" identified in previous patches.

Yes, and they should show in all subsequent patch release notes...check out
the latest ones with 5.0Ap33 for example.

>If the answer to the above is "yes", is it correct to say that 5.0Ap10 is 
>a STABLE release of the features identified in the 5.0A Release Notes?

More stable is the goal. 5.0A should be used to define the feature set, and
then each patch is INTENDED to be a 'stabilizing' version as it attempts to
fix bugs from earlier versions without introducing new problems. (INTENDED is
emphasized here, as HUMANS are part of this process, so I cannot be absolute).

>Also, is it true that if additional features beyond those identified in 
>the 5.0A Release Notes are not required for my situation that I do not 
>need to upgrade to the 5.1 line? 

Probably true.....but I wonder for support reasons if that is a good
idea. It's difficult to support too many different versions...that's why
you often have requests from TAC to upgrade to a version they are familiar
with .... I'm running 5.1Ap4 on my P75 for example (it takes about 3 minutes
of total downtime to upgrade - for me at least).

>That is, are all "bugs" associated with 
>5.0A features going to be "fixed" in a 5.0A patch? Or, are some 5.0A 
>"bugs" ONLY fixed by upgrading to 5.1? If this is the case, this seems 
>like a never ending cycle where one is forced to upgrade.

5.0Ap loads should fix all bugs from the 5.0A branch. 5.1A introduces new
features and hence can have new areas where bugs may creep in...that's
reality in any new software. 5.1A will be fully regression tested, based on
the feature set of the last released 5.0Ai version. (So anyone running that
version was part of the BETA/regression test cycle).

>BTW, the above mentioned Web page states, "Whenever possible, we recommend 
>using a Patch Release because it is FULLY (my emphasis) 
>regression-tested." I've seen some comments recently indicating that Patch 
>releases are not "FULLY" regression-tested. ???

Miscommunication/misunderstanding....the patch releases *ARE* regression
tested
to the extent they are believed to need it. Since they are intended to be
simple
fixes to an already-full-regression-tested load. The intent is (plagiarism
here):

>The 
>idea of the patch branch is to change as little as possible, so that the 
>regression tests done on the original release will be "mostly" valid, and   
>only small, focused changes to the source base will happen.

And these areas are the focus of the top-up regression testing.


Kevin


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